Hurricane Harbor

A writer and a tropical muse. A funky Lubavitcher who enjoys watching the weather, hurricanes, listening to music while enjoying life with a sense of humor and trying to make sense of it all!

Monday, June 08, 2020

Cristobal a Stormy Story Still Unfolding. Where's Dolly? Will Dolly Be a Deja Vu Storm in GOM? African Waves.... A Look at Hurricane History. Matthew, Florence, Sandy and the 1926 Great Miami Hurricane. Miami Beach History & Architecture




Cristobal inland and still traveling.
Has a passport to Canada...
..and no govt official can keep him out.

I'll do an End Game Post on Cristobal....
...when it's oveer. 
Because the story is far from over.

As for the Tropics today...
..what are we looking at?
Tropical Possibilities.


That's high latitude trouible for June.
June too soon but is it in 2020?
Below is the SW Carib.
Models show a Deja Vu storm forming...
...and moving up into the GOM AGAIN.
Is that Dolly? 
Say it ain't Deja Vu Dolly?


Time will tell.

In motion below.





Yes there is in area the Atlantic there is a yellow area.
NHC walking back it's chances so ...
....not gonna talk on it now.

But further out in the Atlantic is a Wave off Africa.
A wave departing Africa higher up...
..where they are supposed to be.
Where they need to be to develop.
5 degrees is too far South.
10 degrees and we have possibilities.

We will talk on that later.
Today I'm looking back a bit at history.
Why????
Because history repeats.
And we learn from history!

These images from Tropical Storm Cristobal isnpired today's Hurricane History part of the blog.

Currently Cristobal is moving up through the center of the Country, still in the South but on his way Northbound carrying with it the potential for severe weather and localized flooding. Honestly, that has been it's legacy as it's distant weather pounded Central Florida with thunderstorms and tornadoes and localized flooding in the delta regions of Louisiana along the barrier islands of Mississippi. People seem surprised because it was "only a Tropical Storm" and a pretty minimal one intensity wise but a wet, tropical storm can carry with it a whole lot of water.


Steve means lousy as in intensity.
But in watery misery for those cleaning up...
...it was a messy, crappy storm.
Not intense, but size wise huge and wet.


That's sand not sea foam.

I saw this picture from post Tropical Storm Cristobal coverage and it amazed me that people were amazed that this could or would happen. If you live in a beach town and the tropical wind brings in a tropical storm or hurricane it's common to have your streets near the beach covered in sand; adding especially if the storm has come a long ways to your door to deliver you that sand. It's often not how intense a hurricane is, but on the contrary, how far it has traveled to get to your destination.



Sand covered the boardwalk in Long Beach, NY after Sandy a once Major Hurricane going extratropical tore up the boardwalk and flooded homes, businesses and left a mess after traveling a long distance from the Deep Caribbean.



You have to think of a hurricane as a living breathing thing, that has traveled huge distances carrying with it a dome of water and moving endlessly until it can't travel anymore on the ocean and then it rams itself up onto your door like a wrecking ball. A storm such as Matthew or Florence will do more water damage than a storm that blows up immediately and makes landfall suddenly. Again, I said "water damage" vs strong winds or severe weather. Matthew made landfall as a Caegory 1 Hurricane in South Carolina as it's explosive water footprint stomped far inland into North Carolina a mere ghosts of it's intensity when it churned off the coast of South America as a Major Hurricane. The water pushed inland, far inland filling up every river basin in North Carolina covering farms, homes and towns as it flung itself onto land unable to make that turn away as the Hurricane Center had often predicted earlier that it would before going out to sea. Matthew's wet legacy just kept on coming, like a big, huge train unable to stop on a dime the way a fast sports car would be able to and that is common in such hurricanes. Nothing new under the Tropical Sun as they say.

Hurricane Florence, two years later, drenched the same region of the Carolinas with flooding rains and tremendous water damage as a mere shadow of itself, no longer a Cat 3 or 4 or 5 hurricane but one filled with rain, water and endless misery.

Matthew's track below.
Quite the traveler.


A wave that developed just before the Islands.
Sat on just off coast of South America...
...and had no problems with land interaction.

Below is Florence.
The Hurricane that refused to die.
A fish storm that kept swimming.
All the way across the ocean.


After being an intense Major Hurricane.
It reached it's destination as a shadow of itself.
And yet parts of the Carolinas are still cleaning up from it.


Old picture of Collins Avenue covered in sand.

Beware those long traveling storms.
Almost a hundred years earlier.. 
The 1926 Great Miami Hurricane shown below.


Obviously this started from a wave off of Africa.
Ship reports showed there was a West Indies Cyclone moving WNW.
That's what they called it then...
 And it slammed into Miami as a strong Category 4 hurricane.
And aside from the intense winds, it was a very wet hurricacne.
The streets flooded, sand covered Miami Beach.
From the Ocean to the Bay it was covered with sand.
Locals had to dig out their Model T Fords.


Wait for it to load, it's worth it ... because nothing like a real obituary of a hero of Miami beach.

A mere snippet of the story...



Rose Weiss, the "Mother of Miami Beach" attained that fame after practically single handledly forcing the dazed and confused survivors of the hurricane on Miami Beach to get out there and start cleaning the sand off the streets and cleaning up the mess the hurricane made. Rose walked up to Lincoln Road and into the offices of Carl Fisher where people had gathered, numb, in shock at the horrendous damage to their beautiful paradise and bullied everyone into getting out there and cleaning it up insisting Miami Beach would be better than it had been before. And, Rosie who grew up as child on Miami Beach was prophetic on that one as I don't even think that Carl Fisher could imagine how amazing Miami Beach would be in 2020.

Rose Weiss believed in Miami Beach, she knew it when it looked like this below from 1925 and it's still going strong. Buildings getting bigger, higher and really I love it but too many people for a mere mangrove Island in the Bay.


That's up near the Deauville.
A narrow part of the beach.
A place where the ocean meets the bay often...
...in a real hurricane!




Anyone who has ever driven to Miami Beach...
...across the Julia Tuttle Causeway knows this building.

I worked in that building.
I practically lived in that building at times.
It's called the Giller Building.
My kid's pediatrician was in that building.
I once had an After Prom Party there.. really.
My son briefly had an office there but that's a movie.
Giller and Giller Architects had offices in their building.
A family that survived the 1926 Hurricane...
.... how I don't really know. 
Sounds impossible but true.
And then he helped design a city.
Miami Beach was a paradise once again.


The water covered Miami Beach.
The raging ocean covered Miami Beach.
People survived, Norman Giller survived!
Went on to become an Architect....
.... that designed the future Miami Beach.

Understand, the people who survived the hurricane survived it by climbing up above the first floor of apartment buildings and watching as the water met the bay and covered all of South Beach. To this day it amazes me anyone survived that especially when you consider there were waves and storm surge as the waters were not just high but calm, they were a raging ocean. I interviewed a friend of my Grandfather who as a young boy remembers climbing up to the 3rd floor of an apartment building on 3rd Street at the tip of South Beach and watching waves battering the building. He remembered his father leaving the building to walk over to the services for Yom Kippur and having to come back because "there was so much rain the streets were flooding" but it wasn't flooding from the rain but the incoming storm surge of a strong Category 4 hurricane that covered the whole of Miami Beach and yet somehow, miraculously I'd add, some people survived while others died. Many died during the eye when they tried to make their way back to the mainland and the back side of the hurricane swept them off the causeway to a watery grave. Sounds melodramatic but very true. The 1926 Miami Hurricane is called that because it was indeed the real Miami Hurricane as Andrew made landfall further to the South sparing Downtown Miami from a disaster one cannot even imagine.

But Hurricane Betsy covered Miami Beach with sand also as did Andrew and many other storms over time. Miami Beach is basically a barrier island that was just a spit of land covered by mangroves that Miami people rowed over to in their boats for a picnic on Sunday before rowing back before dark while admiring dolphins and manatees in the water that was once crystal clear all the way to the bottom. Oh what a time it was... 

Look at it now!
High up above Lincoln Road.
Where my father had offices.
Where my son the architect loves to hang out.



Me, standing on top of the world of Miami Beach.


You can take the girl out of Miami Beach...
...but you can't take Miami Beach out of the girl.
You know why?
I got the sand in my toes ;)

Have a wonderful day.
When I go long on the Miami Hurricane...
...know tropical waves are rolling off of Africa.
And I see hurricanes on the horizon.

So prepare, do what you need to do.
And we will follow them step by step.
Advisory by advisory.

Sweet Tropical Dreams,
BobbiStorm
@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram.

Know that Twitter is mostly weather.
Instagram is weather and anything I love.
Don't say I didn't warn you,














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Friday, October 19, 2018

Weekend Weather. Tropics? Taking a Break of Finished? Coastal Storm... GOM. Questions Abound.



Convection in the Caribbean.
Rain lingering along the Texas coast...
... continuing to flow in with a flood alert.
Cold weather clouds off the East coast.

Everyone wants to know what's happening with the weather this weekend and next week but some are wondering on the tropics and others are wishing for a snow storm. It's that time of year we start watching the Troposphere to see what may be coming down our way.


Cranky watches up above.
He lives up north.
DaBuh watches down below.
He lives Down South.


In reality we watch the troposphere...
...because what develops there and dips down...
... becomes the steering currents in the tropics.

What goes around comes around.
DaBuh loves to say that...
...it's true.
It can lift a hurricane up towards landfall...
...or it can sweep one away from landfall.

Currently there are no hurricanes forecast to form.
This time of year things can pop up fast so we watch.
But rain is forecast to fall and fall and fall.
This Fall of 2018 


With or without a name Texas gets rain.


The image above is from www.windy.com
They are awesome and they get better and better.
You can switch from wind to rain.
Windwise nothing really develops.

An area tries to close off..


But doesn't really...


Epac is active.


And a storm could form off the Carolinas.


But the easy money is on off the tip of Long Island
South New England.


Old school model view.


That's for NEXT weekend.
If that plays out.
I predict people will start using fireplaces soon.
Carolinas and Virginia in for cold weather.
Front would reach down into Florida.



One thing that is certain is cool air is moving down.
The AC in my house is obviously set perfect.
But the AC is not on... 
Mother Nature is providing the cool air.
Love it.
I really love it.

And a short plug for the NC State Fair.
If you live round here...
Go.. enjoy it. 
Saturday may be a wash out.
Sunday the last day will be beautiful.
It's just fun to walk around and enjoy being outside.
What you do is not as important as that.
You can enjoy being outside again.
Eat an Ice Cream or something fried.
Fair weather is fair.
Not too hot. 
Not too cold.

As for the forecast.
Here's the 3 day.
Mike has it up on www.spaghettimodels.com
Scroll down he's got so much there.
He adds snow maps in during Winter.


allfcsts_loop_ndfd.gif (799×559)

One of the best measures of what is happening.
It changes in real time like the forecast.
Here's the link below:


It changes in real time because.......
...weather is fluid and always changing.

The above is actually reflected in this link below:


The flow goes FAST across the Caribbean....
...into the GOM.
Where it mingles with leftovers from the EPAC
And creates a rainy set up that goes on and on.

latest72hrs.gif (947×405)

A front flies off the East coast.
Watch that dry air race off the Carolinas.
Oh my goodness yes...
I'd turn the AC up cause it's cold but...
...the AC isn't on that's just cool air getting in here.
Got my velvet sweat pants from Victoria's Secrets on :)
Short sleeve top in a matching color.
We are moving bit by bit into Autumn.
Took off the hot pink nail polish...
..tried a new color Burnished Bronze.
It looked like a Fall Shade ;)
Patchy frost possible on Monday... 
Brrr for Bronze.

As for the tropics until that flow stops flowing...
We need to watch the Caribbean.
And any stalled out cold fronts that linger.
That means the GOM and off the FL coast as well.
Late October and early November can produce hurricanes.
On this day in history... Wilma did the Yucatan.
A few days later she did Florida.
She caught a cold front.


Some people stop watching the tropics after the first good cold front goes through Florida and simply say things like "it's all zonal" and what they mean is if they aren't getting any huge CV Hurricanes they don't care and aren't chasing any subtropical or hybrid storm. I'm not that person. I watch with one eye on the tropics and one eye up at the North Pole. No ... not looking for Santa though might be wondering what Superman is doing up there hiding out but he's probably just enjoying the snow. Everyone wants to know about snow or a hurricane, but the reality is that weather happens in between in places that wish they could get rid of the weather. Texas for example is so stuck in a wet pattern and that's common this time of year some years. Caribbean moisture is still moving up towards the Gulf or Mexico and there's much rain but not a lot of spinning going on. No name storms wash out bridges, destroy WHOLE small communities built in the cheaper low lands close to where people work and they get no press. But tropical destinations along the coasts that have destruction get lots of press. You could say it's not the same but it is and it's a matter of perspective. If your community was washed away by a Flash Flood that wasn't even on the radar the night before when you were decorating for Halloween and putting together a few things for Christmas presents it's the same devastating, horrific catastrophe. Oh you heard a neighborhood of trailers were destroyed so you think somehow that it's not as big as a beach front home that looks like the beach front home you always dreamed of... 

A statistic I read this morning said that 30 to 50% of the people in the path of Hurricane Michael live within the poverty range. That might be higher in the part of North Carolina flooded out by rain from Hurricane Florence. To the people who live in the trailer parks and work in the farmland in Florida, Georgia, Carolinas and Texas from the No Name storm they lost their homes and their jobs. I was told it takes a good fifteen years for a pecan orchard in Texas to really produce, that's a long term disaster for people in those parts and I can bet you money that in five years Panama City will look more beautiful than it ever was before Michael. I know because we went through it in Homestead, some of the poorer areas looked like beautiful suburbs three to five years later as money flowed into the area in the same way devastating hurricanes winds blew in with Andrew. Money flows after a hurricane into some areas and other areas money creeps in and the towns barely come back and the people who lived and worked there pick up and move away. Just inland about 30 minutes from Myrtle Beach or less there are tobacco farms, cotton farms and farms that grown winter wheat and the landscape is filled with small trailer communities on the edges of the farms and small towns that all look the same in that they have a few old beautiful buildings and some store somewhere has been changed into a Chinese Buffet. Drive the back roads someday they are beautiful and an education about what it takes to make a country like the USA. Not everyone lives in the cities and not everyone is rich and owns a beach home or a ski chalet but life is way better here than it is in most places across the world. If your home, trailer or beachfront dream house was destroyed your world was destroyed. Some have good insurance or money put away and will rebuild there or somewhere else and others will simply pick up and move on to some other town where they can make a living and send their kids to school.

Some good local news stories in this link below:


Or take a drive somewhere out in the country and look at the Fall Foliage or drive down to the coast and spread some money about encouraging life to get back to normal along the coast of North Carolina. Not sure what I am doing this weekend. Maybe staying close to home and watching football or take a long drive somewhere or maybe go to the Farmer's Market for fresh Fall produce that is bountiful this time of year round here. Time will tell. I'll update the blog should anything happen worth updating. If the models start to come on as fast as Jack Frost is nipping at our door I'll post some information on them. Have a great weekend if you are a Red Sox fan and I am .... you'll be wearing your colors and having a smile on your face. I'd play the Fenway Park video but this series shows we can win anywhere even on the road and we have done that before haven't we? I just realized I have a charm not just a bunch of tee shirts and a way too big oversized tank top I sleep in sometimes.


Besos BobbiStorm.
@bobbistorm on Twitter

If you aren't a big Red Sox fan here's another video below.

Ps. Going to put this here and let y'all think on it a bit and let it sink in that being a mother can be empowering and doesn't mean you can't "have a life" and continue doing what you love. Most 1st world and many 2nd and 3rd world countries have had women leaders and they were often at the top of their game without having to worry how to balance careers. Women in both political parties work in Washington while raising children and even being active grandmothers. I like to think God gives mothers an extra measure of strength especially in today's world where mother's work full time and have to balance being a mother and working in careers from Publix to being an Ambassador at the United Nations. Being a mother takes a lot of navigating and often but not always the father's do their share making it all work. But either way... she does a good job and makes a good point. So this is for any young girls out there... you CAN be a METEOROLOGIST and you can work on air or behind the scenes and you can be anything you want to be you just got to work at it hard as success takes hard work and sometimes a measure of luck. Good luck!


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Thursday, September 20, 2018

Tropics Today AND How Do We Repair the Saffir - Simpson Scale to Make It Convey Dangers of a Hurricane Better? It's Not All About WIND... People Die from INLAND FLOODING Not Just Storm Surge and Tornadoes In Bands... Even AFTER A Hurricane Is NO Longer MAJOR or "Just a Tropical Storm"


Note the tropics are not dead...
...because Florence is gone.
High chances for another high latitude system.
Subtropical or Tropical?
We've been here before.
Down in the Caribbean watching 97L
Been watching it for a while.


There is an area that could develop.
It has low chances.
It needs to be watched until it's dead, dead and deader.



There are silent runner waves ...
Getting past the SAL.
A ULL that could work it's way down to the surface.
Convection in the Caribbean.


I'll discuss that more tomorrow.
Today the big storm in the tropics is...
The discussion on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.
The way we define hurricanes.
Cat 1 vs Major Cat 4.

Everyone is talking.
Everyone has an opinion.


The debate goes on.
Will change happen?
Or do we wait for the next Cat 1 where 38 people die.
And the dollar amount can't even be put...
...onto the damage yet?


Some voices from people I respect very much.


Note also what Rob said.


This is true... we discussed this on Twitter.
He wanted people to keep their guard up.
He is a paid service...
... he is paid for what he does.
Tho he tweets information to all.

Did the NHC going by the basic scale?
Let the ball drop in ways in conveying the danger?
They work by rules. 
They are the Government not a Private service.
They have rules and ways of doing things.
They show a cone to show where the eye is moving.
That comes up short often with Tropical Storms...
..or Category 1 Hurricanes winding down in strength
Do we find a way to fix the Saffir-Simpson Scale?
Improve it or lose it?
Make a new scale?
There have always been wind speed scales.
But a hurricane is more than just "WIND"




An incredibly useful tool to tell you how strong the wind is blowing was devised in 1811 known as the Beaufort Wind Scale. Try it sometime in a summer storm or a tropical depression... on any very windy day you can really tell how strong the wind is blowing with this scale shown below.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaufort_scale


Mike has this graphic all the way at the bottom left.
Good to move around his page.
So much there.




Amazingly this scale really works.
Print it out.
You can keep it with you in case power goes out...
And you can really tell general wind speed by it.
It's a great rule of thumb.
Unless you live in some odd wind tunnel area.
Trust me this scale is as good as gold.
But hard to convey to the general public.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saffir%E2%80%93Simpson_scale


In 1971 the Saffir - Simpson Scale was came along.
It is very easy to convey.
Breaks hurricanes into 5 categories.
Seems logical doesn't it?



From Google:



The truth is they both are good. The Saffir-Simpson Scale is a general way of judging a hurricane in a media based world where they want a headline and the NHC wants to convey the strength of a hurricane and though it isn't officially said ... the idea was to show how dangerous a hurricane is vs ordinary. Obviously no hurricane is ordinary and all have dangers but it's inherently understood a Major Hurricane (Category 3 to Category 5) is a deadly, dangerous hurricane.

I wrote extensively on my blog on my belief that we need to change the way we convey the dangers of hurricanes and the NHC needs to update it's cone to show dangerous weather not just the track of the "center" where the winds are highest in the eye. It gives a poor understanding to the public who figures the worst dangers must be in the "center" that the NHC is tracking and as areas not in the center (parts of NC that were FLOODED) they feel as the intensity of the winds go down their dangers also go down and therefore don't evacuate or drive back to Wilmington from the safety of Raleigh as I met a few people who were doing when she was downgraded to a Category 1 and the NHC put out charts and discussion saying if she made landfall at all she would bounce back or slide SE along the coast as far South possibly as Charleston. I know they were trying to warn people as far South as Savannah they could be in danger but they gave people in North Carolina inland that the DANGER was less ....almost as if a flag had been lowered down to "only a Category 1" and sliding SE along the coast away from North Carolina the danger was less now. Yes, obviously being slammed by a Cat 4 would have been worse, but the extreme danger of flooding, tornadoes and river flooding was there even with a weak Cat 1 and yes the "center" drifted S into South Carolina. The forecast verified, but the true dangers were lost in the shuffle in my opinion.


This graphic is the last one Wundergound posted.
When it was a Tropical Depression.
Dumping HUGE amounts of water on NC.
8.04 TRILLION GALLONS OF WATER FELL ON NC.
Where is that conveyed in warnings?
Where is that conveyed by the Saffir-Simpson scale?


Again many areas outside the "cone" for the "center"
Were swamped by flooding.




Currently there is a storm of controversy over the use of the Saffir-Simpson scale that is not new but often discussed over and over after hurricanes that suddenly drop down in intensity before landfall are suddenly underestimated by the general public as "not as dangerous." This did not begin with Florence as Hurricane Sandy, a once stronger hurricane, was downgraded just prior to landfall much as Florence was as it approached the Carolina coast. Earlier in Sandy's track people in Florida were terrified it would make landfall in Miami as a Major Hurricane and for some time it looked as if it would be stronger. But the NY area rarely gets hurricanes at all so the fears were real but with every drop in wind speed people let their guards down. Then it was downgraded just before landfall as it was falling apart as it climbed in latitude as hurricanes often do and then the damage began on a historic, major level as it flooded communities, swamped subways, leveled trees and became a disaster that some areas along the coast 6 years later are just moving past. Many whole blocks were leveled, torn down and new subdivisions had to be rebuilt. Would people have left the Breezy Point area that was leveled by flood water and a fire at the height of the storm for safety if the emphasis on the dangers of Sandy were based on flooding damage and storm surge and less on wind especially in that part of the world? Maybe.

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/29/nation/la-na-breezy-point-20131030


Not Cat 1 damage.


Again Hurricane Matthew.
A monster Major Hurricane in the Caribbean.
Weakens as it climbs North.
But the damage was Major.




So what is the answer?

Is the problem the scale?
Is the problem the media?
Is the problem at the NHC?

Who and what is the real problem?
Ignorance or denial?

Every area has it's own unique concerns. In Miami, except at the coast where flooding is a problem from storm surge, wind is a huge concern if people do not board up their homes and coconuts or roof shingles go flying in the wind shattering windows not boarded up and once the wind gets into a house it does obscene things. Wind tunneling through skyscrapers does it seem huge damage even when people were told their windows were hurricane proof. While only a Category 2 Hurricane, after being downgraded from Category 5 in the Caribbean, Wilma wiped out the power grid in the Miami area, smashed windows said to be "hurricane proof" and walloped the general South Florida area badly for "only a Category 2 Hurricane" as people complained for weeks waiting for power to come back. Some areas had Category 1 winds yet the whole power grid went out with substation problems and poorly maintained lines prior to the hurricane.




What is the answer?
I don't know.
The Saffir - Simpson Scale is a good one.
The old Beaufort Wind Scale is great.
I think the cone sucks personally.
Sorry... but 38 people died.
The cone did not convey the real dangers.
Again the main page at the NHC...
..should be split with other graphics perhaps?
They are trying so hard to add warnings.
Storm surge was added after Sandy...
The earliest arrival of winds was added.
But the media just shows the cone.
The media just talks about wind speed.
Category 2... WOW ... MAJOR CANE CAT 3
Downgraded to a Cat 1.

What is the answer?
Hope we figure it out.
38 people died at the last count.
Many injured severely.
People homeless from floods.
As I said in my blog before...
The flooding in Mitch was not when she was a Cat 5!
Mitch stalled as a Tropical Storm and people died.
This happens all the time.
We need to get better at warning the public.
That starts at the NHC.
The MEDIA is a huge part of the problem.
And I mean mainstream media.
People like Mike on Facebook spoke on this.
I wrote on it.
The newspapers and TV media needs to change.
Just my thoughts.

Here are some thoughts from online .






Showing this one again on purpose.
I love Spectrum Weather.


Sorry but I don't feel that threat was conveyed well.
With the cone showed below.


We need to find the answer.
Because it will save lives.
Any lives saved are worth it.

Besos BobbiStorm
@bobbistorm on Twitter

Kinston is far inland.
Not sure if it was in the cone.
Doubt it was in the cone.
But the cone went S into South Carolina.
The flood waters inland rose....
Lumberton, Kinston so many communities.
Dillion, South Carolina.


If the audio doesn't work turn it to mute.
It's currently live.
Read the comments.


Not on the coast.
But it floods.
Far from where Florence turned S and went down to South Carolina.
Far from Wilmington NC where it made landfall.








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